Panaroma

Watched Panorama which gave, I thought, a very balanced picture of the endemic child abuse in Jersey, starting with Haut de La Garenne, but then going on to look at Blanche Pierre and other care homes.

The record of problems at Blanche Pierre and later at Heathfield showed that this was not just a problem located at Haut de La Garenne, but when instead of keeping children at one home was changed to several smaller units, the same kind of abusers cropped up in that setting.

In one home, called Blanche Pierre, the house parents Alan and Jane Maguire subjected children to what a later inquiry called "gross acts of physical and psychological abuse". However, when two other members of staff raised their concerns with the Jersey authorities, there was no full independent investigation or referral to the police. Instead, the couple were simply asked to retire. Mrs Maguire was then allowed to take up another job with the local authority, working with children and disadvantaged adults - despite protests from other children's service staff. It was not until 1997, when other former residents of the home came forward with further allegations that the police were brought in. The case was dropped due to "insufficient evidence", but an inquiry carried out in 1999 exposed a catalogue of violent offences against children in the home. Some nine years after the original complaints, Mrs Maguire was finally removed from social services. Meanwhile, a member of children's services staff, who helped to investigate the Maguires in 1990, was himself the subject of a police investigation just months later. The man, a staff member at the Heathfield children's home, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was investigated by police following sexual allegations relating to three boys at the home. Although the police dropped the case, the head of children's services held serious concerns about the allegations. But again the member of staff was allowed to resign. He then moved to the mainland, where he worked with vulnerable youngsters and adults.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/jersey/7322767.stm

Throughout it all, one name kept coming up, that of Anton Skinner, who was in charge of children's services at the time, and who moved the staff in question, let them carry on working, and let the staff in question finally just "resign", and in one instance, even supplied a reference for them - on the condition that they didn't work in children's services in the UK!

Obviously - as with those responsible for concealment of abuse at Victoria College - the policy has been - let them quietly resign (with full civil service pension, no doubt!) rather than being ignominiously sacked, and thereby brought to the public gaze.

Anton Skinner is now executive director of Jersey Focus for Mental Health, a charity to support those who are mentally ill, for whatever reason, no doubt also including the trauma of child abuse. It's a funny old world!

http://www.jerseyfocus.com/section/2/index.html

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